Forest of Arrows
by Cairnhawk
Summary: Kagome's powers warn her of a terrible evil, and she must abandon her life as a village miko in training to protect her people in the only way she can think of. AU. An adaptation of the Robin Hood legend.
1. Chapter 1: Marketplace and Meetings

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Inuyasha. Rumiko Takahashi does.

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**Prologue**

_She liked to look at the wall shrine and pretend that the bow and the sword were kissing. They curved towards each other yearningly, like faces so close, trapped forever in that moment of catching the other's gaze and holding it. The notion just seemed to fit so well with the story her mother would tell her when she was sick, because it was a long story and she had a hard time sitting still for any amount of time, like most little girls. So, while it didn't happen often, the nights she was sick were a perfect time to listen. There was always a glass of milk, and her mother's dark tresses pulled sleekly back and reflecting little flickers of light from the lamp, or the weight of her elbow where she leaned against the mattress and brushed the flyaway hairs from her daughter's feverish forehead. _

_Her mother would tell the story of the brave girl and her bow, and the handsome prince and his sword, and the powerful priestess he was betrothed to, and the horrible, evil man who wanted to steal it all away. Her mother would play with her necklace as she spun out her tale, a perfect sphere of clear quartz, dull and riddled with fissures and white cracks, strung on an oddly braided silver chain. She would let her daughter hold it, some nights, and the little girl would pretend it was the powerful Shikon-no-Tama, the Jewel of Four Souls that had burst from the chest of the priestess Midoriko after her terrible battle, and been entrusted to the line of the Inu-no-Taisho and Midoriko's temple for protection._

_Once, her mother took down the bow from its wall shrine very gently and laid it in her hands, letting her feel the weight of it. She said it was because the bow didn't have a sense of humor and the sword did, which made no sense to the little girl. She wasn't to play with them, her mother warned, only look; because they were very, very old and had fought a great battle, and so they deserved their rest. But, she would say in a mysterious tone, if ever we should need them, our blood will wake them. And the little girl would gaze with wide, golden eyes at her beautiful, dark-haired mother, and wonder what it would take to wake a sword and a bow._

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Chapter 1 – Marketplace Meetings 

It was the end of summer, and a warm wind redolent of the sun-baked grassland surrounding the capital city swept through the open air market, fluttering banners and teasing at carefully pinned hairstyles. This was the kind of day that balanced on the keen edge of seasonal change, perfect in the way of nature, offered up in a pleasing blend of warm sunshine and gentle breezes.

Kagome was thankful for the weather. It meant that any money she made today wouldn't have to go towards cooled cups of tea or chilled vegetables in an effort to stave off heat exhaustion. She could wait for the market to close, pack up her remaining goods, and leave the city gates before nightfall, returning to the forest and relying on her own woods-wise skills to provide food, water, and shelter while she traveled homeward. She fully intended to avoid parting with a single coin; they were in too scarce a supply in her family's village to be spent frivolously.

She felt slightly guilty for the luxury of the cream-colored linen awning over her head, but it had been the only stall space left in the open market that met her requirements: a good distance from guard posts and vendors of alcohol, and far away from the stalls of vendors selling high-end items like scrolls, imported dyestuffs, and calligraphy brushes; things that required thoughtful perusal. She didn't want anyone lingering over _her_ wares, or at least not anyone from the high court.

She had tucked herself between a seller of beautiful, simple baskets and another merchant of miscellaneous housewares, a man who apparently bought the possessions of the deceased, judging by the well-loved appearance of some of the small things – chopstick rests, a tea service glazed in an unusual shade of purple and decorated with gleaming olive bamboo leaves. She could see where the rattan wrapping of the teapot handle was darker from years of some lady's small, white hand going through the motions of lifting and pouring.

A bent old woman shuffling up to her stand drew her eye, and she smiled kindly at the sweet, wrinkled face hooded by a soft gray scarf.

"May I serve you, Grandmother?" she asked politely, leaning forward on her low stool. She got a quick, birdlike glance in response, a hint of shiny black eyes among the mass of lines.

"Such a lovely girl," the woman mumbled, as if to herself. Kagome traded an amused glance with the basket weaver on her right. The middle-aged woman was halfway through lashing the rim of a low-sided gathering basket, kneeling on a thin rug spread on the packed earth of the market.

"Ah, bless her years," the basket weaver murmured, her rounded face serene as her roughened fingers flew.

"My granddaughter would appreciate this," said the wizened woman bent over Kagome's wares, and Kagome leaned further out to see what had caught her customer's attention. She watched thin, shaky fingers brush lightly against an ivory bangle that had been unusually carved. Kagome had expected a pattern of sakura blossoms when she had first felt the ridges, but upon later examination it had been cut with a subtly scrolling design of clouds. She smiled. If you looked closely, there was a pair of swallows darting among the lines.

"Ah, one of my favorite pieces," Kagome said happily, and named a price.

The old woman's face saddened, and she admitted to not having quite that much. Perhaps Kagome would be kind to an old woman and accept a lower amount?

Kagome's face, too, fell, and she worriedly confided that she would be in great trouble with her family if she let such a work of art go for so little. But since the woman was obviously appreciative of the item, she could come down on the price a bit. She named another amount.

The grandmother picked up the bracelet, admired it from all angles, and set it down reluctantly, taking a step back. It was such a shame there was not a _pair_ of them. She offered Kagome a new sum, while the basket weaver blithely finished off her new basket.

Moments later, the little bent woman and the girl behind the booth were grinning conspiratorially at each other, as the bracelet was swiftly wrapped in a scrap of cloth and exchanged for a handful of silver and copper coins and a wink from one beady, berry-dark eye.

Kagome tallied up the rest of what she had to sell in her head. All of her goods were small, easily transportable items of relatively light weight; bracelets and necklaces, rings, stamps, small sculptures, curiosities and art scrolls, even a few small decorative lanterns. It wouldn't do to be caught pilfering the local samurai lord's home because you were trying to lift a half-_koku_ statue of Kwannon, after all. She cupped the pouch of money tucked into the fold of her obi and realized that she'd gotten a pretty good return for her efforts, and what she had left wouldn't be too heavy a burden if she had to carry it home.

It was quite a bit later in the afternoon when a man strolled slowly by her booth, wrapped up in a dark brown, deeply hooded cloak over a set of rich crimson robes. She tilted her head to the side as she watched him approach; he reminded her of autumn, with its stealthy advance and rich palette. The concealing cloak was excusable, as the temperature had dropped as the sun lowered, and Kagome, too, was wrapped in her own cloak, a patchwork piece lined with soft brown-gray rabbit furs. A few months ago she would not have owned such a thing, but the myriad patches of gray and green made for excellent camouflage. She could tell by the fluidity of his motions that he was a youkai, though the glimpse of silver hair and golden eyes when he glanced up at her gave away his heritage to those less observant.

He seemed amused by her selection of merchandise, and Kagome held her breath and wondered if he would accuse her of hawking stolen goods (which to an educated observer, they clearly were. Not to mention their small sizes proclaimed her, personally, as the thief. ) However, he dropped his gaze and picked a thick silver ring out of a small jumble of items, held it up for scrutiny, and then dug in his suikan for a money pouch. Kagome was getting ready for another feisty haggle, and looking forward to it, too, but he extracted a whole gold _ryou_ and set it down on the table in front of her with a _click_, his clawed finger pressing the coin against the wood for a moment as if making sure she saw him set down money.

"No time to bargain, sorry," he said, giving her a rakish grin, and then all but vanished from view. She caught a glimpse of brown and crimson streaking around the corner, then turned back to look at the golden coin she had slapped her own hand over in shock. A whole _ryou_! She could buy a _koku_ of rice for half the villagers with this! Though how she would get home with a standard year's worth of rice for that many people was a problem…

She was still sitting there in shock when a group of youkai guardsmen came wandering around the corner, sniffing the air as if looking for someone. Their eyes turned almost unerringly in her direction and the four of them approached her table.

Kagome wanted to whimper, but she resisted the urge and instead drew on Kaede's teachings, grabbing control of her power and calming her agitated aura, effectively soothing herself and her panicked scent in the process.

"Miss, have you seen a young man with silver hair pass though here?"

There was no point in lying, and she didn't think he had done anything wrong besides give her way too much money for such a small item. "Yes, sir," she replied meekly. "He bought something..."

The guards exchanged tolerantly amused glances. "Well, keep whatever he gave you, miss. Thanks for your help." The trailed along in the path of the silver-haired youkai, and before they disappeared around the corner, Kagome heard one of them grumble, "Inuyasha-sama sure has a weird sense of humor…"

The look on the basket weaver's matronly face clearly indicated that Kagome was about to get thumped on the back to assist her breathing, unless she recovered on her own.

Inuyasha-sama? The Regent? The ruler of Kyoto and the whole of Japan while the Shogun, his half-brother Sesshoumaru-sama, was waging war against the invading hordes of Mongols and Chinese youkai from the continent? Kagome was at first bemused, then incredulous. Her village and many others were being bled dry by their daimyo while Inuyasha-sama was wrapping himself in cloaks and perusing weekday markets like a farmer's wife? What kind of responsible leadership was that? Had he ignored every message sent by the villagers? Even her own grandfather, the Shrine's venerable priest, hadn't received a response. Kagome had, until recently, chalked it up to the Regent having more important things to do, but this was clearly not the case.

She sighed, and rested her face in her hands for a moment, the solitary _ryou_ tucked safely in her own money pouch and stowed away in her obi once more. It was undoubtedly time to go, since she now must travel to the moneychanger's quarter and trade the _ryou_ into more manageable silver _monme_ pieces. She already had plenty of copper _mon_. It didn't take Kagome long to repack what was left of her goods into a carrying cloth and tie it around her shoulders under the cloak. She bid the basket weaver goodbye with a small smile, knowing that she'd managed to tuck a silver piece in with the woman's things unobtrusively. She could well identify the pinch of hunger in another's face, and could hardly restrict her philanthropic efforts to just her village. With so many of the men gone from the countryside to the war effort, it would likely be a long and bitter winter for all.

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Kagome found her step quickening as she reached the outskirts of the forest, the sun setting to her left in a glorious blaze of orange and pink fire as she headed northeast. She had grown up learning to love and respect the forest that surrounded her village, and all its itinerant spirits. Her father had been instrumental in her education from a very early age, and Kagome could honestly say she couldn't remember a time when she could not bring down a running deer cleanly with a hunting bolt at a hundred paces, or distinguish healing herbs among the bracken, or somewhat reliably locate fresh water. She could set snares for birds, tickle fish out of the shallows of a stream, dig up edible roots and avoid poisonous berries. She could start a fire with wet wood in the middle of a howling snowstorm, without flint if she must.

She reached a point on the forest road where she could no longer be seen from the open highway, and ducked quickly off the track and into the undergrowth. She was thankful that summer had lasted this long, there was no dry, rustling coat of leaves on the forest floor yet to give away her movements. It didn't take her long to backtrack to the campsite she'd made the night before, an unremarkable location to any other traveler due to the lack of a campfire. She had had her cloak, and it was too close to the city to risk being discovered.

With a sigh of relief, she pulled a long, lumpy bundle out of the brush. It held her weapons and the shortened hakama, haori, boots, and thigh-length leather vest that she wore while traveling. It was much safer to look like a dirty young man in hunter's clothes than a sweet-faced girl in a summer kimono. She shook out the fabric and checked for bugs, then quickly stripped bare of the kimono and obi she'd worn into town, rolling them up efficiently and adding them to the goods in her carrying cloth. She pulled on the dark brown pants, knotting them at her waist, then pulled the lighter brown haori over her shoulders, her breasts still bound down with a long length of linen cloth. She hadn't wanted any attention while at the market, and while she hadn't rubbed dirt on her face or in her hair, she had done her best to de-emphasize her figure. She drew on the long leather vest, adding a third shade of mottled brown to her outfit, then wrapped a thin moss-green obi around her waist, cinching the clothes to her body. Her kimono had been a sky blue with yellow peonies scattered across it, but now she was a soft smear of forest colors in the twilight. Her patchwork cloak would complete her disguise.

She pulled on the boots and yanked the laces tight, lashed the loose ends around her thighs, pulled her pants down and pulled the drawstring ends snug around her calves. She'd had to make adjustments to traditional clothing to keep out bugs and forest matter while creeping and crawling through forest and field over the past couple of months, culminating in her current outfit. It was unfortunate that it would attract unwanted attention if she were spotted, because it was very comfortable, but the best she could hope for was being mistaken for a member of the _taijiya_, the demon slayers. At worst, she'd be recognized as a thief.

There were three items left in her bundle of belongings: her longbow, her quiver of arrows, and her katana. The longbow had been a gift from her father. Most longbows were roughly six feet long, made of laminated bamboo and strung with a pine-pitch coated silk string, a powerful tool of the samurai. Hers had been crafted at five feet, a more manageable size for someone of smaller stature and a predilection for wandering the forest afoot instead of striking down other samurai from horseback. It had been hers for many years now, and the feel of it in her hand again was reassuring.

The katana was simply a sword, a single-edged blade with a graceful curve meant for slicing at an opponent. It had been left at her family's Shrine many years ago by a dying samurai with no family for it to be returned to, so Kagome's father had taught her and her young brother Souta the elements of swordsmanship. It hadn't occurred to Kagome to wonder where he had learned such things until years after he had died, and her mother had simply shook her head and smiled when questioned.

Kagome slung her quiver and bow over her shoulder and secured the strap, shoved the katana through her obi, and hefted her bundle of clothes and stolen items. She flung her cloak over the whole outfit and started off into the twilight gloom of the forest, knowing she had some time before it was too dark to travel, and the urge to escape the oppressive feel of the city at her back nudging her onwards.

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She was awake well before the rosy light of dawn could filter through the trees. It only took her moments to stretch the sleep out of her muscles, finger-comb her waist-length black hair free of tangles and twigs, and braid it into submission. She was on the move again in minutes, hunger rumbling in her belly. She was many _ri_ from the highway by now, and it was safe to start a campfire without attracting the attention of other travelers. This was the time of year for merchants to sell their wares and get home before the freezing rains began, heralding the winter and its snowy, imperturbable blanket.

As she walked, she inhaled deeply through her mouth and nose as she'd been taught; searching for that elusive tang of rich greenness that told her a water source was nearby. It didn't take long before her ears caught the distant burble of a stream and thoughts of grilled fish spurred her into a trot. She knew better than to come crashing through the underbrush, though, and as she hurried along the soft footing of the forest floor, hundreds of years of fallen, decayed leaves silencing her steps, she reached out with her power and gently felt around the vicinity for life.

The thrum of the forest itself was a steady green pulse to her senses, and provided a soothing backdrop to her search. Blue-green flickers ahead of her promised a sizeable stream, and fish resting in a deep hole created by a sharp bend and drop in the stream's course. She caught the telltale flash of yellow-gold in the tree branches signaling small birds; a warmer ruddy gold in the distance signified a doe and her nearly grown fawn passing through. There were no predators or youkai in range. The further she stretched herself, the less specific the indications were, once she passed a handful of _ri_, she could only determine if a source of life was plant, animal, human, or youkai. Much beyond that, and could only detect the contrast of creature versus nature.

Silently, she offered up a blessing for Kaede's patient teachings. Without the help of the older woman, Kagome would never have been able to control the gifts of her spirit. Ostensibly, it had been her reason for leaving home. Shortly after reaching puberty, Kagome's powers had appeared, much to her grandfather's delight and her own dismay. There had been times when this power of detection, now harnessed, had surged out of control, and the very presence of living things had weighed her down like a cart full of stones. She had been so acutely aware of everything from the tiny organisms crawling on every available surface, including her skin, to the overwhelming aura of a visiting youkai lord that she had collapsed in a fit of seizures. She had welcomed the oblivion of unconsciousness, and when she woke three days later to her mother's haggard face, the power had blessedly receded.

The attacks of fluctuating abilities had come and gone sporadically as Kagome aged from fifteen to eighteen. Kaede had been summoned on her sixteenth birthday to help rein in her latest power, a blaze of purification emanating from her skin. It hadn't harmed anyone yet, but there were youkai in their village, and youkai merchants that the townspeople depended on to bring goods they couldn't manufacture themselves, so something had to be done about the Shrine's undisciplined daughter. Kaede had arrived as quickly as possible, riding pillion behind Hojou, the firstborn son of the village's samurai lord. Poor Kaede had looked like she'd rolled directly out of bed at Hojou's request, all rumpled priestess robes and layers of shawl.

The elderly priestess had stayed for two months at the Shrine, teaching Kagome control of her spirit, which behaved in all ways like a wild horse, powerful and fierce and stubbornly resistant to attempts to tame it. With Kaede's persistence, she had managed a semblance of control, and maintained it until just before her eighteenth birthday.

A few weeks before Kagome could officially take her place as her grandfather's successor at the Shrine, the daimyo, or overlord of her town and many others in the area, had traveled through her village on his way to Kyoto. Kagome's spiritual powers had flared wildly, and struck her down in the dirt at his mount's feet. She'd had no warning; one moment her eyes had been drawn to a large, dark blue stone hung around his neck. The next, a vision came to her of it shattering, the daimyo's skin bursting open and revealing a massive, rotting monster of writhing tentacles. As suddenly as the vision appeared, it had retreated, leaving her sprawled in the middle of the road, an expression of abject horror on her face.

She'd reacted by turning into a living torch of purifying fire, her terrified shrieking and spiritual pyrotechnics spooking the horses in the entourage and nearly getting herself trampled in the process. If it hadn't been for Hojou's timely intervention, the daimyo's surprised youkai guards might have struck her down with spears. As it was, the daimyo himself had sneered and recommended the Shrine put a little more dedication into the training of its priestesses, instead of letting them run rampant and uneducated, endangering the people of his domain. Hojou, bless him, had gritted his teeth at the insult, but apologized profusely and dragged her home to her family.

After a very somber visit from Hojou's father, it hadn't taken much for her to convince her grandfather to send her to the Mangetsu Shrine, halfway to Niigata. They had a priestess who could seal away Kagome's powers until she had learned to control them, and would educate her further in her responsibilities to the village, the Shrine, and the _kami_. They also had an excellent reputation for the healing arts, and with the promise of Kagome returning in a year with the ability to treat most ills that could befall a villager, the unease of her presence would be smoothed over with both the youkai community and the humans who were sure that the daimyo would come back and slaughter them all for her scandalous behavior.

And so Kagome had left home with a few changes of clothes, the robes of a shrine maiden, two week's worth of travel rations (if she supplemented it with game) her longbow, the katana of a dead man, and a year's grace. She'd wanted to leave the katana for Souta, but he'd given her an odd, unfocussed look and told her she would need it. She'd felt a little better about leaving then, knowing that her younger brother had the spiritual gift to foresee trouble.

She'd set out to the northwest, taking a road that wound up through mountainous terrain. In truth, Kagome had no intention of traveling to the Mangetsu Shrine and having her power sealed. Her vision of the daimyo had come with a terrible weight of truth, and she was not about to ignore a gift from the _kami_, or abandon her village. She would go to Kaede, and beg her for training. She would find some way to manage her power and protect her people, and of all the places she could go, Kaede's home on Mt. Hakurei was the safest due to the powerful barrier that encased the mountain. No youkai, nor humans with evil hearts, could pass through the shield, making it one of the safest places to be if one wished to train in the spiritual arts. The power of the barrier gave even normal people the creeps; so the mountain was mostly uninhabited, save for the monastery at the peak and Kaede's home somewhere on the southern slope. It had taken Hojou a day and a half on horseback to reach Kaede's home and come back, so Kagome had been sure she could find her old teacher well before her food ran out.

A flare of rose-white light on the edge of her senses snapped Kagome out of her reflections. Somewhere in the woods on the other side of the stream was a human traveler, moving quickly. Kagome was already past the bank of the stream, which had proven wider and deeper than her initial perception. Storms had brought an ancient cypress down to span the small river, making a perfect bridge, and Kagome was already a quarter of the way across, lost in her musings. She froze in place as the aura moved closer, indecisive. She could run, but she'd be spotted before she could vanish into the brush. Or, she could continue on her way and hope the other person wished to remain as unremarked-upon as she did.

The decision was ripped out of her hands when the curtain of vines on the other side of the embankment crackled, and a woman in the kimono and apron of a peddler pushed her way through. She was clearly in a bad mood, as she carried a very large item on her back that was caught on the vines and hampering her progress. The woman swore blisteringly, and ripped her burden loose, stumbling to the edge of the stream. Kagome couldn't help herself…she giggled. That got the attention of the other traveler real fast, and the woman righted herself immediately into a fighting stance.

"What do you want?" the woman demanded, clearly not knowing what else to say.

"Sorry," Kagome grinned, "You just looked awful silly struggling through the brush with that thing. It's enormous! Why didn't you take the road instead of hiking through the forest?"

"That's none of your business," the woman snapped, kicking her way through the tangle of branches at her end of the tree bridge.

"You might want to wait, you know," Kagome offered dryly as the woman prepared to step onto the fallen trunk. "There's only room for one at a time." Even from a distance, Kagome could see the woman's eyes narrow. She looked hot, sweaty, and very annoyed.

"Fine. Go back, and let me cross. I'm _not_ in the mood to wait."

"I'm already crossing," Kagome pointed out sweetly. "Get out of _my_ way, and then you can be on yours."

The woman tilted her chin up arrogantly. "You know how to use that katana, little girl?"

Kagome couldn't decide if she was worried or not that she'd been identified as female through her clothes. "Of course. I'm not helpless."

"Very well," the woman replied, shrugging out of her burden's carrying strap. Much to Kagome's surprise, she pulled her own sword out of the bundle on her back. She straightened up, brandishing the blade. "Fight me for the right to cross first!"

Kagome's grin widened. "Come on, then!"

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_**Vocabulary:**_

_**Koku**__: a unit of measure no longer in use (like bushels!) and equivalent to one year's worth of rice for one person, weighing approximately 330 lbs. A __**masu**__ is enough rice for one person for one day, and weighs roughly 6 oz._

_**Kwannon:**__ the Japanese name for a Buddhist goddess of mercy. _

_**Ryou:**__ a gold coin, worth 60 monme._

_**Monme:**__ a silver coin. Here's where I have lots of conflicting info on how many mon or other coins (fun, hiki) make up one monme. For simplicity's sake, let's make it 100 mon._

_**Mon:**__ a copper coin._

_**Ri:**__ another archaic unit of measure: equivalent to 2.445 miles._

_**Taijiya:**__ Youkai exterminator._

_**Kami:**__ miscellaneous spirits that govern everything from the water in the streams to the animals in the forest and then some. Kami were everywhere, and considered rather capricious, thus the Shinto priests and miko to intervene on the common man's behalf. Think pickle pots and monkey spirits._

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_**A/N:**__ For anyone following 'WnK,' my apologies…I've been distracted. Here's my latest foray into the sea of fanfic. _

_A few notes:_

_I'm not inserting gratuitous Japanese…it makes me crazy. 'Hai' and 'gomen' do not cover the myriad levels of politeness necessary in Japan, be it today or eight hundred years ago. I will, however, use Japanese for things usually best left untranslated, like the words "miko," "houshi," and "youkai," although common translations will appear (priestess, monk, demon) because it's awful to repeat youkai, youkai, youkai over and over again. Regarding youkai: they are creatures of nature and magic, and nothing like the 'demons' of Christianity. Not all of them are evil (i.e. kitsune, who prefer being tricky at the expense of humanity). My reluctance to translate also includes attacks, because I gag a little every time I hear "Iron Reaver Soul Stealer." (This is not the fault of Richard Cox; poor guy is only reading a script.) I will be including titles, such as –sama, –dono, –san, and –chan, because they are so helpfully indicative of interpersonal relationships. In English I call my mother 'mom' but my fondness for her is only indicated by tone of voice. _

_I will include miscellaneous vocabulary words for things that are inherent to Japan, and I will define them for you as much as possible in context so you don't have to skim down to the end of the chapter for a meaning. Because this is an AU of the Inuyasha-verse, I am taking some liberties with the time period (roughly 300 – 500 years BEFORE the Sengoku Jidai), the clothing, the money system, and some of the ethical and traditional values present in feudal Japan. If you see something correctable, by all means suggest it to me, and if it won't throw a monkey wrench in the plot, I'll fix it. For those of you who haven't already, go read Kuro's "Literal Translation Theatre" at ear-tweak dot com, and giggle at the brilliance of "HONORABLE SIT!"_


	2. Chapter 2: Sango's Story

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own Inuyasha. Rumiko Takahashi does._

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**Chapter 2 – Sango's Story**

_"You know how to use that katana, little girl?"_

_Kagome couldn't decide if she was worried or not that she'd been identified as female through her clothes. "Of course. I'm not helpless."_

"_Very well," the woman replied, shrugging out of her burden's carrying strap. Much to Kagome's surprise, she pulled her own sword out of the bundle on her back. She straightened up, brandishing the blade. "Fight me for the right to cross first!"_

_Kagome's grin widened. "Come on, then!"_

And with that, the woman leaped lightly onto the trunk and unsheathed her sword, flinging the scabbard onto the bank behind her. Kagome drew her own blade, bringing it up into a guard stance. The two blades clashed as they ran at each other, and up close, Kagome could now see the woman was only a year or two her senior, pretty and slender, with wide dark eyes and long, sleek hair tied off at the end with a ribbon. Kagome felt her shoulders strain under the power of the other girl's strike, and wondered at the sheer strength bearing down on her. What did this girl _do_ that built such muscles?

The tree bridge shifted the tiniest bit, rolling on its axis, and the girls sprang apart, not ready to try another test of strength on such unsteady footing. Kagome grinned, and got an answering smile from her opponent. This would be a good fight!

They clashed again, powerful two-handed strikes carefully meeting blade-to-blade. Neither girl wanted to kill the other; they had simply recognized each other as worthy opponents. They slashed and thrust at each other, a graceful dance of flickering, gleaming steel, and Kagome quickly realized that her opponent was much better than she. If she wanted to win, she would have to adapt her technique to her surroundings and hope for an opening.

_And they call women the gentle sex_, Kagome thought, meeting her opponent's blade just above the hand guard and using her stance to shove the girl backwards. The girl stepped back and then struck forwards, the blade coming in blunt-edge first to wallop Kagome hard on the shoulder.

"Yagh!" she yelped, startled, then set her jaw and jumped forwards, bringing her blade down in a straight-on strike that she knew would be easily met. As soon as she felt the steel connect, the impact ringing up her arms, she took advantage of her opponent's off-balance position and rotated her footing. The girl responded like any well-trained fighter and shifted her own footing around, but forgot there was only a few hand-span's worth to work with. Despite advantages in both strength and skill, Kagome won by default as her opponent stepped right off the tree trunk and plunged into the river below with a squeak of surprise.

Kagome quickly sheathed her blade and peered into the water swirling below. The drop between the tree and the water was half her height, but the water below appeared to be several times that in depth. The girl should be coming up any minute now. She waited a moment, watching until she caught a flash of cream and purple, the fabric of the girl's kimono, drifting at the bottom.

"Crap," Kagome said, and flung her katana, cloak, bow, and quiver of arrows across the stream to join the girl's possessions on the far bank. She then jumped into the water below feet-first, wondering at the true depth. Sure enough, just as the chilly torrent closed over her head, her booted feet struck the uneven, boulder-strew bottom of the hole. Her opponent had gone in sideways, and must have either inhaled water in surprise or struck her head on one of the rocks. She squinted through the glittery gloom, glad for the morning sunshine slanting through the depths. It lit up the pale face of the girl, as her body settled at the bottom of the hole cut in the bedrock by the twist of the river. It only took Kagome a moment to kick downwards and grab her under the shoulders, then thrash to the surface where the current caught at them again and dragged the girls a good bit downstream before pushing them into the shallows of a bend in the river. Kagome dragged her burden up the rock shelf and onto the pebble-covered beach, then laid her out gently, with the girl's head resting on Kagome's outstretched leg.

She checked the girl's skull for damage and found a lump above and behind her left ear, and when she drew her fingers back they were stained pink with watery blood. This didn't surprise her much, as head wounds usually bled profusely, but the cold, clammy appearance of the girl's face was unnerving. She lowered her ear to the girl's face, and then laid her head against her chest, checking for breath and heartbeat. The heartbeat was steady, if slow, but the girl wasn't breathing at all. She'd seen a farmer breathe for a newly delivered calf once, his mouth clamped over the slimy nose as he forced air into the little thing's lungs. Surely she could do the same?

Moments later, she was cracked across the face with a clenched fist and shoved backwards, sprawling in the wet gravel of the river edge as the previously unconscious girl tried to both sit up and cough out half the stream simultaneously. She hacked and gagged for a moment, then cast a dizzy glance in her rescuer's direction.

"Damn, you hit hard!" Kagome moaned, rubbing her cheek.

"Sorry," the girl mumbled. "For a second, I thought…"

Kagome raised her hands in a gesture of frantic denial. "Ew, no! You swallowed a lot of water, and weren't breathing."

"Oh," said the girl. "Thank you…" She stared down at her soggy self for a moment, and then mumbled something else.

"Pardon?" said Kagome, in the process of standing up and removing her sodden leather vest.

"I'm Sango," said the girl, this time raising her head and peeping at Kagome through spiky, wet lashes, a small, sheepish smile on her face. Kagome smiled back, and draped her wet vest across a low-hanging branch. She stepped back and watched it dribble river water onto the grass.

"I'm Kagome," she replied. "Wait here. I'll get our stuff and start a fire to dry us out." She jogged up the bank to the spot where their things were scattered about, collecting her weapons, her cloak, the girl's discarded sheath, and the bundles of belongings. She tried lifting the gigantic flat item that the girl had been carrying, but it must have weighed nearly a full _koku_ and Kagome could hardly budge it. "That explains the muscles," she muttered, shaking her head.

When she returned downstream, Sango was missing, but there was a small pile of dry kindling stacked neatly next to a hole that had been dug in the ground and cleared of grass in a wide circle. There was even an old bird's nest for tinder, which Kagome quickly pulled apart and stuffed into the firepit. She pulled out her boot knife and the flint from her pack, and stuck a few sparks off the blade into the stringy mass. Kagome was feeding a small, cheerful flame with the kindling when the girl reappeared with an armful of fallen branches. "Oh, good," she smiled, "I had to leave that big thing of yours behind. Too heavy."

"Hiraikotsu," said Sango distractedly, dropping her armful.

"Hirai-what?"

"My weapon," Sango explained, kneeling by the fire and lifting her empty sword sheath, letting water trickle out of the interior. "My primary weapon, at least."

"Ah," Kagome said, and stood up, examining the riverbed. Water washed over rocks and spills in a bright cacophony of rushing sound, gleaming in the midmorning sun.

"It was my mother's sword," Sango said, coming to stand next to her, and despite the proud lift to her chin, Kagome could see a glimmering hint of tears in the girl's eyes. "I am ashamed to have lost it in such a foolish act."

"Well, no time like the present," Kagome said cheerfully, and started pulling off her clothes.

"What are you doing? It's been swept downstream by now," Sango pointed out in a resigned tone.

"It might not have," Kagome shrugged. "I'm already soaked…might as well look for it." She draped her haori over some bushes and pulled her boots off, laying them near the fire where they began to smell faintly like rather old venison. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she'd had nothing to eat since waking. "And lunch," she added, patting her belly. Sango giggled; a reassuringly feminine sound.

Kagome spent a few minutes looking for a shallow pool among the rocks, drawing on her power to find one with fish in it. She managed to flip three unsuspecting _ayu_ onto the bank where Sango made short work of killing and cleaning them, spearing the sweetfish on sticks and tilting them over the fire to cook. Lunch attended to, Kagome then worked her way from their impromptu campsite back up the river to the tree bridge, splashing through shallows and pits in her linen breast band and her hakama scrunched halfway up her thighs.

Sango called to her that the fish were cooked at the same time Kagome finally spotted Sango's sword, the blade jammed between two rocks and the rushing water spraying out fanlike around the hilt. It was, of course, in the very middle of the stream and Kagome would have to dunk herself in order to retrieve it. She slipped into the water with a resigned sigh, swam to the outcropping of rock, and dragged herself up and over to the next spillway, reaching down and pushing on one of the rocks binding the blade in place. She caught the hilt as it fell, and waved it triumphantly in the air for Sango to see. Even over the rushing of the stream, she could hear the girl's excited shout. She swam back to the shore with her prize and tromped downstream, following the tantalizing smell of smoky fish.

They ate in companionable silence, with Sango glancing every few minutes upstream, clearly worried about her Hiraikotsu. Kagome opened up her power to explore the immediate area again, and found little change from the morning. She reassured Sango that they were alone in the small river valley, and no one was about to walk off with her weapon.

"How can you know such a thing?" Sango demanded, skepticism lacing her voice.

"I'm a shrine maiden," Kagome answered, lifting her mostly-dry haori off the bushes and flapping it in the breeze. "I can feel the life around me."

"How does a shrine maiden end up traveling alone through the wilds, in men's clothes, with a sword?"

"It's a long story," Kagome said slowly, but one look at Sango's curious, honest face gave her the feeling she could be trusted…with part of the story, at least. "My father wanted me to be ready for anything… evil men, hungry youkai…so he taught my brother and I everything he knew; about fighting, the forest, the world we live in. He didn't care that I was a girl, or that I was supposed to spend my life as a priestess and the villagers would provide for me and defend me. Sometimes I think he foresaw things that might happen. It was his way of protecting us, I guess." She broke a twig and threw it into the fire. "A couple of years after he died, I had to leave my village to train my powers. It wasn't until I lived with my teacher for a while that I realized how bad things had gotten for some of the villages around us." She stopped, trying to figure out how to phrase things without incriminating herself. "I was supposed to go to a Shrine that was far away, but I had a vision that told me I was needed by my people. I couldn't go too far. And soon after I left, I realized how hard things were getting – not just for our village, but _everyone_ in Musashi's domain. First, the daimyo raised the tithe from the samurai lords, and they in turn passed it on to the villages. If the peasants can't pay the tax in coin or rice or goods, the men are conscripted into the army and the women and children taken as servants, if they're lucky…in some places, they _have_ been sold, like oxen, or…or chickens. Like they aren't even human." She had been trying to deliver this explanation calmly, but her voice wobbled a bit on the word _human_. "I just…"

Sango placed a compassionate hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to tell me," she said softly.

Kagome shook her head slowly. "If you're headed north, you need to know. There are some places where human bandits have burned down whole villages. Youkai live in the forests and pick off farmers and livestock in broad daylight. The daimyo sends his soldiers, but they are always too late." She hung her head, plucking unhappily at the grass where she knelt. "I can only stop so many. And my purification arrows don't work on humans. If they were just coming after me, I think I could manage. But while I'm in the east, people suffer in the west. They're everywhere. I can't keep up."

"I'm very glad I ran into you, then," Sango said, squeezing her shoulder. "That is why I've left my village: to slay youkai."

Kagome felt hope flicker in her heart, ever so briefly. "You're taijiya?" Sango nodded, smiling. "Be careful," Kagome warned. "The daimyo makes the villages pay for his aid. He claims they should be able to take care of youkai and bandits themselves. I don't know what he'll do if he finds you taking his place."

"I am only one taijiya," Sango murmured. "How could I be unwelcome in a land crawling with rogue youkai?"

"Just be careful," Kagome pleaded. "The villages will welcome you. The daimyo and his soldiers will not."

"I'll bear that in mind. But my village is struggling. I cannot accept a permanent position away from my family, so training soldiers at the capital and joining the army are not options. A life as a wandering slayer is my choice." Sango stood, dusting off her nearly dry yukata and re-tying her green overskirt. "You are traveling home, correct?"

"Yes…it's about a week's walk to my village from here."

"Perfect. I will discharge my life-debt to you by accompanying you home," Sango announced, putting out the campfire. "And we will work on that abysmal sword technique of yours." She grinned at the younger girl in a friendly fashion, taking any sting out of her words.

Kagome gulped. The idea of training with the much stronger girl was both appealing and frightening. "I, uh…you don't-"

"Nonsense. It's been decided. Grab your things…I need to fetch Hiraikotsu." With that, Sango climbed back upstream, while Kagome put on her clothes. Only her leather vest showed signs of dampness, but the sun had reached its zenith and the day was quite warm. She'd be completely dry by the time evening approached and temperatures dropped. She was thankful she hadn't dived in with her cloak still on. With the fur lining, it would take days to dry out completely.

Sango returned with the table-like thing she called Hiraikotsu held over her shoulder. Kagome was perplexed; it didn't look like any kind of weapon she recognized, a pale length shaped like the hiragana '_ku_.'

"What _is_ that?"

"It's easiest to show you." Sango stepped to the edge of the river and, with a sudden cry, flung the thing into the sky. It whirled across the river in a smooth arc, then seemed to pause before spinning back towards its owner. Kagome took a few steps back in alarm, but Sango simply reached up as if it were a falcon returning to a glove, catching a handle on the enormous boomerang and skidding backwards a few handspans in the loose gravel from the momentum. She turned to beam at the younger girl, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed. "It's made of compressed youkai bones – it's been in my family for generations. Each of us have added something and strengthened it."

"Amazing," Kagome breathed, and earned the older girl's amity with her honest, wide-eyed admiration.

-

-

-

The two girls settled into the kind of companionable routine one usually finds among true friends and long acquaintances. They traveled lightly, Kagome bringing down small game with her bow or sneaking up on river trout when their path intersected with water. Breakfast and lunch were eaten on the go, leaving them extra time in the evenings for Sango to make good on her promise, which she did enthusiastically. Every night, the forest rang with the sound of wooden sheathes smacking together like buck deer clashing over a doe. By the time the week was up and they were ready to part, Sango had dealt Kagome a full set of bruises to accompany the half-healed one on her shoulder from their first fight, and Kagome had learned the hard way that Sango wore most of her taijiya armor under her yukata.

"Cheater," she'd muttered, but it was said with a good-natured smile as she rubbed the still-tingling ulnar nerve in her elbow.

While traveling, they were too deep in the forest for bands of human raiders to bother with, and the youkai seemed to be giving them a wide berth, for which Kagome was grateful. She'd spent so much of her time prior to the market trip to Kyoto running frantically from one end of Musashi to the other in response to youkai attacks that she had actually fallen asleep on her feet while making her way back to Kaede's. She had come to only a few moments later, judging by the amount of liquid that had spilled from her water skin, but it had been a sobering moment as she picked herself up from the forest floor and brushed off the decaying leaves that clung wetly to her face. Traveling with Sango was a relaxing stroll in comparison. The girls spoke freely of their lives and families, sharing stories and lessons they had learned, feeding the flames of companionship and respect. Kagome hadn't fully explained her reasons for avoiding villages when she could easily have traveled unmolested in the garb of a miko, but Sango had kept silent on the subject, occasionally flicking a curious glance at her pack.

When Kagome could clearly see the peak of Hakurei-zan and the smudge of brown high on the southern face that was the monastery, she knew she was nearly home. They reached the border of Musashi just before evening, and the girls spent the night camped near a hot spring, and while they bathed, Kagome explained to Sango which villages were in direst need, which inns to stay in, what manner of youkai she had encountered, and where the daimyo's men were likely to be patrolling.

Sango was still scoffing at the notion of the daimyo stopping her from practicing her trade. "My village has dispensation from the Emperor himself," she reminded Kagome. "It would be a crime of state for the daimyo to prevent me from offering my services to the villages. It would be the same as outlawing monks, or scribes!" She slapped her palm against the steaming water, as if that were the end of the discussion.

"All the same," Kagome replied, handing Sango a small clay pot of soft, herb-scented soap, "I've seen his soldiers, um…discourage mercenaries from offering the same assistance."

"If there is a problem, I will have my father contact the Regent himself. Inuyasha-sama would not ignore the headman of the taijiya village if he claimed such a thing."

Kagome snorted. "If he's not too busy evading his responsibilities," she grumbled, her breath sending the steam rising off the spring's surface to spin and whorl in dizzy patterns. At Sango's raised eyebrow, she added, "I'm not sure the Regent can be counted on to help his people. He has no idea what is happening in Musashi."

"I have met the Shogun," Sango said mildly. "Sesshoumaru-sama was very intimidating, but my father trusts him completely. I can't imagine his half-brother is much different, even if his mother was human. Wouldn't human blood make Inuyasha-sama more sympathetic to his subjects?"

"I don't know," Kagome shrugged, digging dirt out from under her fingernails with the point of her boot knife. "I saw him in the market at Kyoto, scampering around like a little boy hiding from a nursemaid. He didn't look very…regent-like. " She frowned, an image of the cloaked man's careless, confident grin wavering before her in the rising steam, his golden eyes bright with amusement.

"Did you actually talk to him?" Sango asked, moving forward with the pot of soap and a cloth, gesturing for Kagome to turn around.

"Huh? Oh, er…not exactly…he bought something from my booth," Kagome said bemusedly, turning and piling the wet, black mass of her unbound hair atop her head as Sango scrubbed her back with brisk, firm strokes. "He gave me a whole _ryou_ for a cheap silver ring. I guess that's his idea of charity work."

"Done," said Sango, handing off the soapy cloth. Kagome turned to wash her friend's back, dipping the rough fabric into the soap-crock and lathering it between her palms. "Well, I suppose not everyone is comfortable with what their family's duty dictates," she added, her voice sounding sad and distant.

"You don't like being a demon slayer?" Kagome asked, startled. Suds from the cloth ran down her suddenly motionless arms and dripped into the spring from her elbows.

"Oh, no - I love what I do. It's just…my younger brother, Kohaku, doesn't really seem interested in following in our family's footsteps. He spends more time daydreaming than practicing, and our father is always after him to pay attention to what's going on around him…" Sango shook her head. "But he's quite good, really, just not…focused."

Kagome giggled. "It's the way of younger brothers, I think," she said lightly, rinsing her cloth out in the water. "My younger brother Souta never really liked our father's lessons in archery. He was much more interested in the sword. Father used to say, _Son, you have a duty to protect your mother and sister_, but Souta would tell him we'd be better off if I just sat on the roof and picked off youkai with my arrows." A smile curved her lips. "My mother would laugh and say she was fortunate we could both take care of ourselves."

Sango turned slowly to face Kagome, lowering herself in the water to rinse the soap from her skin. "I wonder what my mother would say," she whispered, dark eyes distant. "Sometimes I think she's the reason he's not interested."

Kagome watched the older girl quietly. Sometimes, Kaede had told her, companionable silence brought answers faster than curious questions.

"She was the heart of our family, always loving and patient, and so strong. She was one of the most skilled slayers in the village. She killed two enourmous _oni_ with nothing but her sword not two weeks after Kohaku was born. They snuck up on her doing laundry by the river – it turned into a big joke, later. They said she threw dirty diapers to distract them." She grinned, and drew a shaky breath. "She was amazing. And then…she died. A youkai swarm attacked our village. I was ten. Kohaku was only four."

There was a ringing silence, into which Kagome finally spoke softly: "She was defending the people she loved."

Sango laughed; a gasping, slight sound. "Thank you for not saying _I'm sorry_," she smiled, pink lips trembling. "I've heard that too many times." She tipped her head back and gazed up at the waning gibbous moon overhead. "I hate that the strongest memory he has of our mother is her death. She was so much more than that." The taijiya's voice was gentle, wistful. "Father gave Kohaku her youkai weapon. I already had Hiraikotsu, so I got her sword. I just don't think it means the same thing to him as it does to Father and I – that a little part of her is still with us, carrying on her work. I think he sees it as a burden."

Kagome raised her eyes to the night sky, watching the moon with Sango. It hung serenely in its sea of velvety blackness, the color of honeyed milk, or the palest ghost of the sun…or like an echo of golden eyes, grinning at her.

She tore her gaze away.

"Our mother wasn't the only one who died in the attack. We lost more than half the village that day," Sango said briskly, scrubbing handfuls of sand into her hair before dunking herself quickly to rinse it out. "It's taken nearly ten years to rebuild everything; the defense walls, the buildings destroyed by the horde. And now, with the Shogun at war with the demons of the Continent, many of my people have gone with him to fight. Others are training new soldiers in the capital city, or doing what I'm doing now – wandering the lands, slaying rogue youkai at need. Only the old and the very young are left."

"Where is your father?" Kagome asked, leaning back against a water-smoothed rock and stretching her legs out in front of her.

"He's in the village. He lost a leg in the battle, and can't go on missions anymore. He manages the day-to-day concerns, and looks after Kohaku…though, at fourteen, he should be taking care of himself." Sango smiled fondly. "Like I said, he's such a dreamer. That's why I left my partner with them…since I'm gone, someone has to protect them."

"Your partner?"

"Oh, yes. Father gave her to me when I was younger than Kohaku. Her name is Kirara." Sango grinned. "You'd recognize her as a nekomata."

"Wow, a fire cat! Does she really have two tails and manipulate the dead?" Kagome leaned forward eagerly.

Sango laughed, this time a free and happy sound. "Two tails, yes, but the necromancy is just an old wives' tale. She doesn't eat carrion, either." She chuckled. "She looks like a kitten to most people, so getting an inn was never a problem when traveling, even in the towns unfriendly to youkai."

"Amazing," Kagome said, shaking her head. "What I know of our history with youkai is limited to what my grandfather taught me, and I've found that most of his stories have to be taken with a grain of salt." She began ticking specifics off on her fingers. "One: humans and youkai rarely met in ancient times – the youkai were so few and so powerful, and so busy fighting each other that they didn't have time to waste on the short-lived humans. Two: conflicts began to arise as humanity spread and invaded the ancestral lands of the youkai. Three: terrible wars broke out, culminating in the great battle five hundred years ago, when the Inu-no-Taisho and his clan defeated the demon and human armies, and removed the human Emperor from power, claiming rule under the mantle of Shogun." She glanced over at Sango for confirmation.

"To this day, the Emperor is just a figurehead, nothing more," agreed the older girl, calmly working a bone comb through her long, wet hair.

Kagome continued. "Four: the Inu-no-Taisho ruled surprisingly wisely, taking first a demon wife who bore him a son. Three hundred years later, he divorced her and married a human woman, who also bore him a son. Five: when the Inu-no-Taisho fell in battle, his oldest son stepped in as Shogun, ruling Japan in his father's footsteps. While the oldest son is away leading the army, the younger son rules as Regent in the Shogun's absence."

"That's mostly correct," Sango said. "But the human girl taken by the Inu-no-Taisho was of a noble family, and he didn't marry her – he made her his mate, in the way of youkai. Your grandfather didn't really fill in many details."

"Not really," Kagome replied, shrugging. Married or mated, what was the difference? "I was afraid to ask – he might invent some, just for the chance to keep talking." She grinned fondly in remembrance. "He'd tell me everything in the shrine had some kind of torrid, dramatic history. Even the pickles Mama set out for dinner." With that, Sango laughed again, and the conversation turned to lighter topics.

They parted in the morning with affectionate hugs. "Please come to Hakurei-zan if you pass by," Kagome urged. "Anyone can direct you to Kaede's home; she is the oldest and most revered healer in Musashi. Everyone knows her." She paused. "Best if you not mention me, though. I'm supposed to be halfway across the country."

"I'll remember your invitation, Kagome-chan," Sango replied, hefting her giant boomerang as if it were weightless. "I will not forget my debt to you." Kagome opened her mouth to protest, but Sango held up one gauntleted hand. "Anyone else would have let a foolish and temperamental girl drown."

With that, the girls went their ways; Kagome to return to Kaede's hut, tucked safely away on the side of the holy mountain, and Sango to the nearest village, where Kagome had sensed the youki of something that didn't belong.

-

-

-

"If you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask, taijiya-san," the innkeeper's wife said, bowing deeply. "The baths will be opened for your use shortly. In the meantime, please enjoy your meal."

"Thank you," Sango murmured, settling Hiraikotsu on the floor rather than lean it against the fragile shoji screens that separated the guest rooms of the inn. She shut the screen behind her for privacy, enclosing herself in her own room as she stripped off her filth-encrusted armor. The day's slaying had been a straightforward matter, but messy beyond belief. The weasel youkai eating the village's pigs and chickens (it was too lazy to hunt down the oxen, which had been in the mood to stampede) had tried its very best to elude her by retreating across the dark, thick, stinking muddiness of the rice paddies and she'd been forced to give chase. She was covered toe-to-hip in mud and hip-to-brow in guts, and the bath hadn't been provided at her request – it was, rather, an insistence, first by the village headman's wife, then by the innkeeper. She smiled ruefully, thinking she really must be a frightful mess to get such an insistent offer of luxury. Then again, she'd saved them from having to buy all new chicks and piglets in the spring to re-start their farms, so they could certainly afford to sponsor her a solitary trip to the baths…if only to spare the rest of the village the smell of her.

She pulled on the plain white yukata that had been spread out on the futon for her use, tying it loosely around her still-grimy body. Dinner was set on a woven bamboo tray perched atop a low, square, lacquered table; typical fare for the time of year and the quality of the inn. Sango had finished most of the rice and the baked whole fish, and was nibbling on a pickled radish when there was an impatient tapping on the frame of the shoji screen separating her from the inner hall of the inn.

She slid open the screen, expecting to see the innkeeper's wife, and was given momentary pause as the regal personage before her was most definitely not of the village. It was not a human, but a youkai female; dressed in an elaborate kimono and sporting an elegantly twisted hairstyle that swept back her sleek, dark hair with feathered pins. Her face would have been lovely if she hadn't drawn her small red mouth into a moue of pure irritation.

"You are the taijiya?" the demoness demanded without preamble.

Sango nodded her head once, a frission of apprehension running down her spine as Kagome's warning echoed in her ears. "I am."

"Very well." She cleared her throat meaningfully. "I am Kagura. I have come personally from the daimyo himself, Onigumo-sama, to deliver his thanks for your timely assistance and to pay your fees as you travel from his domain of Musashi." She reached into the folds of her kimono and withdrew a leather coin pouch that made a dulled clinking sound as it dangled from her outstretched fingers.

Sango stared at the proffered money, her thoughts racing. It wasn't a forceful ejection from the daimyo's domain, but it might as well have been. From the sound of the coins in the pouch and the way it sagged heavily, there was enough to pay her fees several times over. As bribes went, it wasn't particularly subtle.

"I appreciate the daimyo's offer," Sango said slowly, "but this village has already paid my fee. I could not in good conscience accept anything else."

"He insists," the youkai replied with false sweetness, carelessly dropping the bag to the floor at Sango's feet where it spilled open, golden _ryou_ rolling across the polished pine floorboards of the hall. "He wishes your return to your village to be the swiftest journey a homesick traveler would wish for."

_Well, _that_ was certainly laying it on thick_, Sango though wryly. "I appreciate his concern," she reiterated, "but I cannot accept." She pushed the corner of the money pouch out of the way with her toe, and made to slide the screen shut on her visitor.

"I _strongly_ suggest you reconsider," Kagura snapped, grabbing the frame of the shoji and holding it still. Sango gave her a level glare, her fingertips clenching on the wooden frame. The youkai's annoyance gave way to an expression of arrogant amusement. "Have it your way, then," she said in a cool voice, and released the screen. She stepped back, ignoring the spill of money on the floor. "Remember you were given a choice, taijiya," she added, withdrawing a long fan from inside the sleeve of her kimono and snapping it open. She gestured grandly with it, and a sudden, ferocious gust of wind whipped through the hall, rolling the loose coins, rattling the screens, tearing Sango's hair out of its ponytail and whipping the dark strands across her face. When the gust ended as swiftly as it had begun, and she'd had a chance to scrape the hair out of her eyes, the visitor was gone.

Sango stood in the doorway for a moment, listening for movement, but the inn was as quiet as any other late summer evening. She could even hear the oh-so-faint _pops_ of the large carp mouthing the surface of the inn's courtyard pool. She was struck with a sudden longing for the reassuring presence of Kirara, and her excellent senses of hearing and smell. After a few frozen moments of apprehension, Sango slid the screen closed and knelt slowly on the woven tatami mats, reaching for the comfort of her katana's cord-wrapped hilt. Her palm was intimately familiar with the contours of the handle, the rise and fall of the binding as it wove over and around itself. For a second, she pictured her mother, a slender woman with long, dark hair in braids and a blurry face that had smudged with time and the distance of childhood memory. "_Okaa-san_…" Sango whispered, the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickling apprehensively.

She waited in frozen silence, the oil-lit torch flame in the corner burning itself out slowly. It had begun to gutter and hiss, throwing fitful flashes and shadows across the paper walls, when the comparatively loud footsteps of the innkeeper suddenly thumped down the polished wood of the corridor outside. "Taijiya-san?" The woman's voice was strident, falling into the silence like a boulder plunging into a birdbath. In spite of herself, Sango twitched, then rose with a great feeling of weariness and a creaking of her joints. "The bath is ready for you."

Sango slid open the screen and stepped out, glancing down for a moment as she waited for the innkeeper's reaction to the small fortune spilled in her otherwise spotless hallway.

"Have you…lost something, taijiya-san?" the plump woman asked hesitantly.

"No," Sango replied, trying to keep the consternation out of her voice. She scanned the smooth pine boards a second time, as if the coin pouch and its glinting contents would suddenly reappear. "Nothing."

The innkeeper paused, halfway down the walkway, favoring her guest with a concerned expression. "I'll bring you some more tea, shall I? Once you are clean?"

"Yes, thank you," Sango murmured, reaching for her sword and slinging it over her shoulder. She followed her host along the porch and across the small town square to a separate building used primarily for laundry here in the mountains, where cold weather made washing in the rivers impractical. Between the buildings she could see the stepped fields falling away in the darkening gloom, black bordered by silvery gray stones, looking like frozen ripples in a midnight pool. She sighed, then wished she hadn't, as it made her draw a deeper breath than usual and the stench of paddy mud and weasel guts caused her eyes to water. It was with an overwhelming sense of thankfulness that she bowed to the innkeeper holding the bath house door open, then closed it behind her and shed her yukata, sitting down on a small stool in the corner and reaching for the worn cake of harsh soap and a scrub brush. She scoured herself until she felt raw with the effort, but the sensation of missing a layer of skin was highly preferable to the crust of filth she had been sporting. She dumped a final ladle of chilly water over herself from the bucket beside her stool, then stepped into the enormous wooden tub full of steaming water. The heat on her abraded skin stung painfully, but she closed her eyes and sank to her knees slowly, letting the final detritus of the day leach its way out of her skin and hair. She had finally arranged herself comfortably, head resting on the edge of the tub, when a shy tap sounded at the door.

"Come in, please," she called, and a tea tray peeked hesitantly through the slowly opened doorway. It was shortly followed by the headman's wife, and then the innkeeper, who seemed a little uncomfortable not having something in her own hands, and had apparently chosen to wring them nervously in lieu of bearing something. Both women had an air of expectancy about them, and knelt simultaneously at the side of the tub, the headman's wife neatly pouring and serving Sango a cup of fragrant tea. She accepted in silence, and sipped thoughtfully, eyeing them over the glazed rim of the cup.

"We'd like you to stay in our village," the innkeeper blurted out suddenly, then clapped her hands over her mouth in horror at her own display of atrocious manners.

The headman's wife patted her friend's shoulder comfortingly, and murmured an apology, her cheeks slightly pinked with both the heat of the bath house and embarrassment. One did not simply ask for such a favor without the proper preface, of course. And certainly not when dealing with strangers. "Taijiya-san, what my companion means to ask is, whether you have travel plans for this winter?"

"I had not planned so far ahead, my lady."

"It had occurred to us," the headman's wife continued, her gaze lowered respectfully, "that we have plenty of room for a guest in this village. And you have a skill that is in sore need."

The innkeeper sniffled pitifully, and Sango was startled to see tears streaking down the woman's face. "My Sachiko! Oh, oh…" More snuffling ensued, as the woman buried her face in her long sleeves and tried to muffle her sobs.

"Aya-san's daughter is thirteen this winter," the headman's wife said suddenly, briskly, as she put an arm around the crying woman. "It is an age when many of our children disappear from our village. We have long suspected youkai, as they take both boys and girls. What good is a thirteen year old girl to a bandit, except for rape? And we have never found the bodies." Her voice was hard, and there were telling lines of grief on her face.

Sango felt a wash of relief as the veneer of politeness was scraped away in the face of need. "Most assuredly, my lady, a young girl could be sold for profit. Without other clues, it would be impossible to place the blame solely on either youkai or outlaws." She leaned forward, the warmth of the tea seeping through the porcelain and into her cradling palm. "While I can easily deal with youkai, I am not equipped to deal with a band of robbers. Numbers can easily overwhelm skill."

"We are sure your presence alone would deter them," the headman's wife said firmly, cradling her sniffling friend against her shoulder and leveling a clear-eyed gaze at Sango. "We have sent for help numerous times, but the daimyo is too busy to deal with such a small village as ours. Every winter for the past six years, we have lost at least one child. Aya cannot bear the thought of her beloved daughter suffering the same fate."

Kagome's words rang in her ears again. _Be careful_. "I will consider your offer," Sango temporized. Part of her heart was demanding she stay, while the other part warned against committing herself to a task that would prevent her from returning home to her family, and her true obligations. "A warm hearth in winter is always a welcome prospect."

"That is all we can ask for," the headman's wife said, and stood gracefully, pulling the weeping innkeeper with her. "We will leave you to consider it." She smiled sadly. "One hopes your answer will favor us." And with that, the two women left her in the thick, humid silence of an empty bath house, the scent of coals and warmed wood strong in the air, but not strong enough to cut through the fog of grief and need left in the wake of her visitors. The water seemed to cool swiftly afterwards, and Sango abandoned the tub in favor of the clean futon waiting in her room. She dried herself with a coarse sheet of linen and shrugged into the relative cleanliness of her borrowed yukata, collecting her sword from where she had set it within arm's reach of the bathing tub, and stepped out into the cool, still air of a mountain night.

The moment the door thudded lightly into place behind her, Sango realized something was deadly wrong. Her hand flew to the grip of her katana, but not before she was struck from behind with enough force to hurl her face-first into the packed dirt surrounding the building. Her sword arm, still grasping the hilt of her blade, was trapped under her own body, wrenching her shoulder out of its socket. She rolled to her right, trying to guard her back with the bulk of the bath house, gritting her teeth against the searing pain of abused tendons. Her breathing was harsh in her ears, and she blinked furiously, trying the clear the bright, bursting stars from her sight. Movement on the very edge of her vision had her spinning in place, drawing her sword and nearly gasping aloud with the pain of moving her injured right arm. Bracing with her left hand alleviated some of the weight just in time, as a massive dark shape raked at her with extended claws. She caught the strike on her blade and deflected it, then leaped backwards to a better position. Her blurred vision cleared slowly, and she struggled to comprehend why the slain weasel demon from earlier that afternoon abruptly loomed before her, having pulled itself back together from being split in half, and was now hissing in a very un-weasel-like way.

"Remember, you were given a choice." The words drifted hauntingly out of the darkness surrounding her. The weasel youkai gurgled horribly, baring its teeth and frothing oddly at the mouth, bloody foam running from one corner of its gaping maw. It lurched at her, eyes blank and staring sightlessly ahead, and Sango had a sudden flash of understanding – _the body was being manipulated like a puppet's_ – before it threw itself at her. Without Hiraikotsu to hand, and the youkai corpse completely unresponsive to strikes from her blade, Sango was helpless under the onslaught of sheer mass. She danced to one side, trying to work her way around the thing's corpse so she could make a break for the inn, and her boomerang.

"Oh no, no…we can't have that," said the disembodied voice, and before she knew it, Sango was caught in a ferocious gust of wind and flung bodily at the youkai, which caught her in it massive arms and crushed her against its chest. Tears sprung to her eyes as first one, then a second rib cracked under the pressure, and she simultaneously tried to both inhale and not gag at the stench of filthy, blood-matted fur and swiftly decomposing flesh. She kicked helplessly at the beast, desperate for air, and knowing she was fighting a losing battle as a red film began to cloud her vision. She could feel her grip on her sword loosening, despite repeated commands from her brain to hold on, to stab the youkai, something, anything – and then, relentlessly, darkness washed over her, and she slumped bonelessly in the arms of the reanimated corpse.

"That should be enough," murmured Kagura, descending slowly from the night sky on a giant white feather. She rose to her feet gracefully and stepped off, lighting on the ground as if she, too, weighed no more than a feather. She waved her fan casually, and the weasel dropped the limp taijiya unceremoniously to the ground. Kagura prodded her with one slender white foot, an expression of great distaste on her face.

"Can't leave her here, of course…"

And with that, the weasel youkai bent over, grasped the demon slayer's hair in one massive paw, and proceeded to drag the unconscious body towards the forest verge, and beyond that, a dry river ravine; where no one from the village would think to look until it was far, far too late to anything but bury the remains.

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_**Vocabulary:**_

_**Ayu:**__ A freshwater fish native to Japan and other areas in Asia. Translates to "sweetfish."_

_**Chou:**__ another distance measurement, equivalent to 0.068 miles._

_**Yukata:**__ a lightweight summer kimono._

_**The Continent:**__ China, Korea, and the rest of the Eurasian continent._

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_**A/N: **__Ah, yes, the interminable wait! I haven't felt like writing in quite some time, but the muse returned out of the blue this afternoon and proceeded to poke me until I sat down at the computer and did something productive with myself._


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